by Alice McIntyre
“Red Dawn” (1984) is a delightful, paranoid trainwreck. The film, directed by John Milius and starring Patrick Swayze, depicts a group of high-school students at the outset of World War Three. Forming a guerrilla force named after their school mascot, the “Wolverines,” this plucky band tries to fend off a joint Soviet-Cuban occupation of the United States. While nearly all of them perish, the end of the film shows a plaque in their memory erected in the commie-free future.
I have a bit of a soft spot for action movies. My motto is the dumber, the better: and “Red Dawn” easily tops my list. The opening scenes show Soviet paratroopers gunning down kids in a high school parking lot. A gaggle of jocks wreaks havoc on Soviet forces in the strategic location of… drum roll please, rural Colorado. Arbitrary executions, re-education camps, you name it. If it’s a piece of McCarthyist hysteria, it’s in this movie. “Red Dawn” feels like a film adaptation of the innumerable comic books warning of a Red America from decades prior, and it’s so bad it’s good.
The absurdity of the film’s premise easily occurs to us now, looking back. In my view, however, no film better captures the mood of “Cold War II” (though “Rambo III” comes close). At that time the image of American “democracy” against Soviet Stalinism got a makeover: it was hair metal meets the Hellfire missile, the same anti-Soviet war drive, with a side of “Miami Vice.” Not unlike in Vietnam, it turns out the price of democracy under capitalism is a hell of a lot of war crimes. All the while, the Reagan administration busted unions, let thousands die of AIDS, ramped up police repression… you name it.
It seems we’re in a familiar spot.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I and many others like me thought the way Donald Trump pronounced “China” was hilarious. There were memes aplenty. However, Trump’s trade war and military provocations against China were not and are not a joke. Neither are his incendiary referrals to COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus,” which have inspired racist bullying and harassment of Asian-Americans. All the while, China’s planned economy has lifted millions out of poverty, just as the Soviet Union did the same until its destruction in 1991.
Even less of a joke is the fact that for the whole of this election campaign, President-elect Joe “shoot ‘em in the legs” Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala “top cop” Harris have vied with Trump over who’s “tough on China.” Both wings of the ruling class in this country, regardless of party affiliation, are on an anti-China war drive. They have been since Barack Obama’s 2010 “pivot to Asia.” Recall that Trump’s impeachment trial was based not on crimes against immigrants and refugees, or his whitewashing of murderous fascists like those who descended on Charlottesville, VA., in Aug. 2017. It was based on the issue of “national security.”
Many are excited about Biden’s election win. They were and are rightly repulsed by the unashamed pig that is Donald Trump. The Democratic Party, however, is just as much the enemy of the working class and all the oppressed the world over. They are the party of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of the Vietnam War, and of racist police terror in nearly every major city. They are no alternative to the ridiculous Cold Warrior fantasies manifested in “Red Dawn” and never will be.
Verdict: National Defense Contractor/10. Quintessentially American.
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